Dr Mushani speaks with ecancer at AORTIC 2017 about developing health literacy among women in Kenya.

She describes how there is little evaluation in place to gauge the impacts of health communications, and that there is now an oncology nursing diploma in place, whose first graduates will receive their certification at the end of this year.

Transcript

It is a project looking at the health literacy and educational needs of women diagnosed with cancer of the cervix or cancer of the breast. We’re looking at newly diagnosed women and we’re going to follow them through at particular points in their treatment trajectory.

Why is it important for patients to have good health literacy?

In East Africa we don’t know what patients’ needs are. We know that there are many myths and misconceptions and so we’re hoping to understand what these women are thinking, we’re hoping to understand how they process health information. If we can understand that from them we can then use it to develop nursing education and patient education materials that are contextually relevant.

We’re looking at about eight to twelve women. It’s in Nairobi, we’re looking at women going to a private hospital and a public hospital, so we’ll draw from two separate institutions.

What inspired you to start this project?

Many things, one was because I have been living and working in Kenya for a few years and we’re noticing that we don’t really know, we have no way to evaluate, if patients are understanding what we’ve told them, if they’re able to follow through. There was a call for grants and I happened to know Margaret Barton-Burke and so we talked about a possible topic and this seemed very relevant to us so that we can advance how we can help these women.

Are you looking to develop a curriculum with these results?

We’ve developed one, it’s an oncology nursing diploma, the first in the country. It’s a diploma that looks to specialise nurses in cancer care because right now there is no specialisation. So I’m very happy to say that the first group of nurses will graduate in December and they will be the first group of oncology nurses in Kenya.

Do you think this can be replicated in other countries?

Absolutely, the programme is written so that it’s contextually relevant. Pieces of it can be modified to other East African countries. So we’re already looking at adapting it in Uganda next year. Yes, it can be adapted to the region.

Any final thoughts?

We just want to thank many external international partners who have stepped in to help us with the curriculum, who are stepping in to help us with research, who are also giving talks by Skype to the students. There are so many people I can’t name them all but just knowing that we can call on them and they’re willing to share their expertise makes it so much better for us and more helpful for our students. So thank you to everybody.